BRIEFLY COLLEGES

SO-CALLED GUARANTEE GAMES TO BECOME SCARCE College football's Davids will get fewer chances to knock off the Goliaths in the coming years.

Part of the fallout of the sweeping changes coming to college sports will be a decrease in so-called guarantee games in football, where a power conference school pays hundreds of thousands of dollars to have a team from a lesser league play at its stadium.

The result will be far fewer opportunities for embarrassing blowouts (Oklahoma State 84, Savannah State 0) and startling upsets (Appalachian State 34, Michigan 32).

The commissioners of the lower-revenue conferences say losing the pay days won't kill their leagues and that giving players from smaller schools a chance to compete on the big stage has value.

Mid-American Conference teams will play 13 games against Big Ten teams this season, plus six against the Southeastern and two each against the Big 12 and Atlantic Coast, and many of them fall into the category of guarantee games.

The shift to nine-game conference schedules, along with an increased emphasis on strength of schedule for the coming College Football Playoff, all but guarantee fewer opportunities for the other five conferences (MAC, Sun Belt, Mountain West, American Athletic and Conference USA) in FBS to play the top five.

Add in the need for the power conferences to beef up their schedules to create made-for-TV matchups to justify the millions they are getting in media rights deals, plus a possible reconfiguration of Division I, and it leads to speculation that the big five soon will be playing exclusively among themselves.

NCAA PENALIZES MONTANA

Montana's football program was placed on probation for three years and will have its scholarships reduced from 63 to 59 over the same period after the NCAA found boosters provided extra benefits to players, including bail money and free legal representation for two athletes. Other player perks provided by boosters included free meals along with clothing, lodging and transportation, the NCAA found.

The penalties, many self-imposed by the school, include vacating five wins for games in which ineligible players participated after receiving help with their legal problems in violation of NCAA rules.

MUSCHAMP GETS RAISE

Florida gave football coach Will Muschamp a $250,000 annual raise in salary after an 11-win season. Muschamp will now make $2,928,000 annually through the 2017 season.

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